4. Reason

A third-floor bedroom where gentle moonlight shone through the window. A man and woman were entwined on the wide bed positioned near the fireplace.

As the man’s solid body with distinct curves moved like waves, the woman let out a drowsy sigh.

“Mm……”

At the breath full of satisfaction, the man smiled and pulled the woman into his arms while lying on his side. The woman, now much closer, smiled and kissed his chest.

“Whew. Isabel.”

The man called his fiancée’s name mixing hot breath into it. It was an explicit seduction with clear intent.

But Isabel Castilla, the eldest granddaughter treasured by Marquis Castilla, only smiled at the man’s seduction.

The disappointed partner reached out to fiddle with Isabel’s hair. Hair with the damp night clinging to it wrapped around his calloused fingers.

As expected, he wanted to do it one more time.

As soon as he recalled her cries of ecstasy as she writhed in his arms, chilling lust surged up. He wanted to suck and taste every corner of her body flushed red with pleasure, burrow into her wetly loosened below and see her call only his name again.

What blocked the man who was racking his brain to seduce her again was Isabel’s voice that suddenly came.

“Should I dye it gold too?”

What is this about now? Is this a new kind of test? The man slightly frowned and examined Isabel’s face.

Because he was aroused again by his fiancée’s face still languidly bearing traces of pleasure, his head wasn’t working well. Still, the man did his best.

“Dye it blonde and think of me while looking in the mirror?”

He rubbed his shortly managed blonde hair this way and that. And as if rebelling against the woman’s words that it tickled, he acted like a male wolf seducing a female.

“Isabel.”

His breathing gradually became rougher.

“It’s good to think of me when I’m not here, but right now, please love the fiancé in front of you first.”

He subtly moved his lips. He intended to resume lovemaking with the deep kiss she liked.

“Ah. And about your sister.”

“……What?”

The existence of his sister suddenly brought up as a topic made the aroused man stop.

‘Why is she bringing up Rania?’

The brow of Alec Artua, Isabel’s fiancé and the eldest son of the Artua grand ducal house, narrowed.

He sat up and keenly watched Isabel’s mood.

‘Did it hurt?’

No, if that were the case, he would have noticed. They had mixed bodies countless times, so he wouldn’t confuse expressions of dislike that came from excitement with sincere rejection.

‘For now…… it doesn’t seem like a serious problem.’

Alec, who had been rolling his navy blue eyes around, slyly grabbed Isabel’s perky br*ast.

“Mmh.”

At the short nasal sound that burst out, Alec let out a laugh.

“I don’t know what’s wrong, but Isabel. This one was waiting first. Let’s talk about that later.”

At his admirable effort to change the mood, Isabel glanced at him with amused eyes.

Relieved, he wrapped his arms around her slender waist and entwined their bodies in the way she liked most.

“Anyway, I did wrong.”

“What did you do wrong?”

“That I’m an idiot who doesn’t even know what I did wrong?”

Isabel burst into short laughter. But when he expected her to tell him his crime by now, Isabel still seemed inclined to save her words.

“What should I do to make you tell me?”

“Do well.”

“Do well?”

“Do well. Alec, what you’re good at.”

“What I’m good at? There’s too much, I don’t know what to start with.”

At his smooth words, Isabel poked his side saying he was annoying. Though her finger pressed quite hard against his firmly muscled body, Alec didn’t even pretend to flinch.

“As ordered, I’ll do what my fiancée would like most.”

He who sat up cast a shadow over Isabel.

His beautiful face without a single flaw, and the perfect body built with muscle beneath it, was seductive enough to be called ‘flesh sculpted by an incubus’ among nobles.

However, Alec’s scheme to tease her failed miserably as soon as it began.

It was a fight with no chance of winning from the start. Before love that made his heart tremble just by thinking of it and caused blood to rush through his whole body bringing fever just by making eye contact, he was always nothing but a loser.

“Damn. Isabel……”

Alec hurriedly lowered himself before her brilliant beauty. Then he kissed her round knees and soft thighs to show his reverence.

Isabel, who had unconsciously made way for him, shook her head and breathed wetly.

“Ah, wait. Alec!”

“You like it when I suck here like this.”

His lips that continued advancing made red marks on the inside of her thighs. At the sensation of moist flesh being exposed to cool air, Isabel trembled finely.

Alec willingly let her flailing hands grab his hair as he finally invaded deep between her legs. Then he reverently kissed her p*ssy that had embraced his c*ck until just moments before.

“My. Isabel. How long have you been waiting?”

Alec, who briefly parted his lips, licked her wet flesh with his tongue as if confirming her excitement. But pretending to be relaxed was only momentary—when Isabel panted and called his name, Alec couldn’t hold back anymore and buried his face in her p*ssy.

“Ah, Alec! Mmph!”

At the sensation of pleasure rushing in, Isabel reflexively closed her legs. Alec paid no heed and sucked her p*ssy. The explicit friction sounds mixed with her cries of ecstasy excited him even more.

The sensation of pleasure surging up from below, the man’s rough breathing as he eagerly sucked her there, and even his touch—tense with the effort to restrain a more forceful grip…… Isabel reached her limit from f*replay alone, without any penetration.

“Already? Too fast.”

Alec sat up looking troubled as she went limp after feeling climax.

“If it’s hard, relax here and breathe. Yes. Like that.”

Alec massaged her waist and thighs with a serious face.

“How is it?”

“I think I’ll live.”

“Can I take those words as permission to do more?”

“No. Really no.”

When Isabel shook her head violently, his face that had been kneading her thighs gradually became serious.

“Does it hurt? It looks a bit swollen but seemed okay. I should probably call a priest……”

“That’s not it, if we start now we won’t be able to stop.”

“Why?”

“Why we have to stop…… because what I have to tell you is about your sister.”

“……”

Alec realized this was Isabel’s second warning.

“I’d like to postpone the talk and solve this first……”

When Alec rubbed his body against her thighs with a sulky face, Isabel glanced at him coyly.

“But you’ll let it slide?”

“If it was something that could be discussed later, you wouldn’t have brought it up now, would you?”

“Right. I originally planned to talk about it as soon as we met, but you seemed so urgent.”

“Then it was my fault.”

Alec readily admitted his guilt. But even if he returned to that moment again, nothing would have changed.

“Sorry for being late, Isabel. Let me say it again.”

It was their reunion after three whole months.

“I thought I’d go crazy from missing you.”

***

The monster subjugation force led by Alec was originally scheduled to patrol the Nilsen Plateau near the border and return within two months.

However, because they discovered a monster concentration site called the ‘Black Cradle’ at the edge of the plateau, they were too busy to even immediately send news that their return would be delayed.

Alec, who only entered Artua’s second city this morning, showed his face to his parents to maintain minimum courtesy, checked on his youngest sister’s face that had grown so much in the meantime, then rushed to Isabel.

Originally his plan was to take her to his personal mansion. There he intended to personally attend to everything from meals to baths to bedtime, showing her how much he had yearned for her while they were apart.

⟨……I missed you.⟩

But at the first greeting Isabel gave him when he visited without notice, Alec had no choice but to pounce on her like a starved beast.

She said she missed him—clearly she intended to drive him crazy.

Of course, even if Isabel had just breathed at that moment, he would have pounced saying ‘How could I stay still when you breathe while looking at me like that?’

Isabel was bewildered by her fiancé who trembled with excitement.

⟨Alec, mmh, wait. You didn’t come without stopping by the grand ducal residence, did you? Then let’s go together to greet them first, ahh!⟩

⟨Hah, Isabel. Sorry, but you can’t leave this place today.⟩

⟨I have appointments!⟩

⟨Sorry. Still can’t do it. Your fiancé might die.⟩

Alec arrived just after lunch, and it was four hours later that he let Isabel rest briefly, asking ‘Why has your stamina gotten so bad?’

Since the marquis house’s butler tactfully vacated the floor they were staying on, the two continued to cling to each other afterward.

⟨Alec. What would you have done if my parents and siblings had been at the mansion?⟩

⟨I came knowing they were away. I especially keep checking your grandfather’s schedule even while I’m out on subjugation.⟩

If the marquis mansion hadn’t been empty, if Isabel’s maternal grandfather the marquis had been there, he surely would have swung his sword saying ‘That grand ducal heir bastard is in heat trying to devour my granddaughter.’

‘That old man would really swing a real sword and more.’

But seeing Isabel who said she had something serious to discuss, Alec felt a little regret.

He felt an instinctive uneasiness that rejoicing in the marquis’s absence and rushing in recklessly might have caused a fatal mistake.

‘Something related to Rania……’

Alec recalled his youngest sister whom he had seen after a long time.

⟨Alec. Why did you make Mother sad by telling us late that you’d be coming back late?⟩

Rania, who grumbled as soon as she saw his face, worried about her late-returning brother, was actually someone who brought up slightly painful memories for Alec.